Page 36 - Issue 112 May-June 2021

Maths Data visualisation and numeracy In this article Professor Steve Chinn explains how data visualisation, or the use of visual images and maths equipment, can enhance maths learning. 36 Data visualisation I’m sometimes behind the curve. Well, not always totally, but sometimes missing a vital link, not making a connection. So, recently I have noticed the phrase ‘data visualisation’. It seems to be a relatively recent discipline, at least in its title. To me it looks like something that does, ‘what it says on the tin’. Specialists and companies offer to take data and present it visually in order that people can better understand it. To me that seems like using visuals and materials to help children learn maths more effectively. Using visual aids and materials is something that goes back a long time in maths education and brings to mind names like Cuisenaire rods, Diene’s blocks, the abacus and bead strings. And Bruner’s stages of development, although I may have some caution about being over-specific on the age ranges attributed to them. Yet, some teachers still resist the use of visual images and materials when teaching maths and some educators are certainly not advocates for their use. This applies particularly when pupils are beyond the early primary years. Learners are plunged into the symbols, and only the symbols, before concepts are secure. “Some maths teachers still resist the use of images and materials” There are exceptions, of course, notably Numicon. I like teaching maths and learning from my students, whatever their age. I have learned so very much more from my students than I have from maths ‘educators’. And I include myself in that category. So, let me consider some examples of data visualisation I have used in my lessons and that my students have found efficacious. The very basics I have been saying for many years now, that teachers need to know where the maths topics they are teaching started and where they are going next. Otherwise, intervention, and the initial teaching will not go far back enough and won’t set the foundations for further development. Maybe sometimes a quick revisit and refresh is enough to get them back into the ball-park. SEN112 senmagazine.co.uk